


oh, these hands paved my way home

by swallows (toska)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 12:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3936013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toska/pseuds/swallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>— Amell, Alistair, and their hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh, these hands paved my way home

**1.**

 

It’s funny how people can be a home, Amell thinks. Alistair’s hands are entwined within hers, clammy and warm. She doesn’t mind, not really. She commented on it once, she remembers. He flushed, and yanked his hand away, mumbling. She pulled it back, lacing their fingers together.

“Us wardens need to stick together, this is the Maker’s way of helping.” She grinned, leaning into him.

“I know other ways we can be stuck together, that are also quite sticky.” He murmured back, a few minutes later.  She shoved him off, and laughed.

**2.**

 

Neither of them have nice hands. Her nails are chipped, with dirt underneath them and her palms calloused and rough. Her hands are small, with fingers that are long and skinny, and you can see the blue veins on the back of her hand. _Dainty_ , is the word that Alistair uses to describe them, but she doesn’t feel dainty. Not when she’s bludgeoned darkspawn to death with her staff. Her hands are too rough to be dainty, too hard pressing from days crushing elfroot and batting around her staff like it’s a sword in high pressure situations. Despite his long elegant fingers, and neatly trimmed nails, Alistair’s hands are as rough as hers. If not more, from holding the blade’s grip—rough from the time he spends putting it back to good use. He likes to say that the heat that comes from her having his blade aflame, contribute too.

And sometimes when they are asleep, she likes to imagine his hands get more calloused when he holds her at night. It’s a strange thought, she knows. But he holds her so tightly when they sleep with hands so warm, she feels just right.

Not dainty at all she thinks, but when he cusps her so tight against his chest. She thinks that being a little dainty, isn’t so bad.

**3.**

 

They are lying down at some campsite, when he asks why she doesn’t like being called her first name. She has her head resting on his lap, eyes closed as his hands brush through her hair. It’s dirty and matted, she knows, but he doesn’t mind. And she doesn’t know the answer to the question— at least not in a way that is easy to explain, so she’s quiet with her knotted hair and knotted tongue, thinking. But it’s just sometimes it feels like her last name is the only part of her that is tangible, that won’t be forgotten. But that doesn’t make sense, so she just settles with the end of that statement and prays that he won’t laugh.

“I don’t want to be forgotten.” She says.

He laughs at that, and she winces. “You won’t be, you’re the Hero of Ferelden.”

“But I don’t want to be just the Hero of Ferelden, I want to be me. Amell. No titles, necessary.” She says, with an indignant expression.

“What’s wrong with being both?” He asks.

She doesn’t know, so she remains quiet, finding comfort in his hands running through her hair.

**4.**

 

His hands spell out her whole name on her back. She feels him writing the letters methodically repeating the process once he finishes. “It’s a reminder,” he says. “It’s a reminder that you are still you, no matter what. And you’re more than a hero, and you’re more than your last name. You’re everything, you know.” The words come out quick and mumbled and his breath feels warm against her skin and she can feel the heat of his flushed skin. And truthfully, she feels flushed too, so she buries her face into his neck as the heat bubbles within her.

"Saniya," he says quietly, and she wonders if he could feel the smile pressed against his throat.

**5.**

 

They say that home is where the heart is, but she isn’t sure. Her heart is in many different places, and with many different people. It’s with her companions and with Dagna, who still writes her letters and with her Dog, and with Jowan, who will always be her best friend, and it doesn’t make sense, when a person’s heart can hold so many people all loved in various ways.

Love starts from the hands, now this she is sure of. It starts with the brushing of fingers as she hands him as a health poultice and it follows with his hands clumsily grasping hers towards his lips and closes with her setting his armor in place and him, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes.

Her name is Saniya, and she is home. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> \+ no definite timeline in regards to this, this is like a series of vignettes actually idk  
> \+ i don't even know how i ended up writing this fluff, but here we are  
> \+ this fic was gonna end with "she feels infinite" but that is so "the perks of being a wallflower" and i just had lots of high school flashbacks and honestly i don't even know what that line means  
> \+ very interested in gameverse and how protags are defined by their last names, and how first names are something that are more flightly??? not sure if i'm explaining this well at all WHOOPS this is a conversation for a later date, i guess  
> \+ this isn't really what i intended to explore i just wanted to talk about hands and love, but here we are- don't think i explained that name thing properly  
> +also im the cheesiest person ever which explains why i am smitten with alistair


End file.
